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Olive Garden Salad Dressing

I think one of my favorite things to do is to recreate my favorite restaurant meals at home. Sometimes I get a really good end result, sometimes it is total yuck. Ok, lots of times, it is kinda yucky. But the process itself is enjoyable for me. Now, if you follow my blog, then you know I always say that even though recipes can sometimes come close to those restaurant favorites, I will never say it tastes exactly like what you get in the restaurant. Because many times, we just don’t have access to certain ingredients that the restaurants do but we can sometimes get the taste pretty darn close. And also, there is just something about eating out that makes food taste better sometimes.

First of all, you didn’t have to cook it. Second of all, you won’t have any dishes to wash. Thirdly, you’re out on the town having a really great time with good folks. All that adds up to a very tasty and enjoyable meal. So even if you can recreate the taste at home, you can’t exactly recreate the experience because those dishes ain’t gonna wash themselves. Having said all that, it’s still fun to try. And one of those recipes that I had to try is the good ole Olive Garden Salad Dressing. It’s kinda like the holy grail of salad dressings. If you’ve never eaten at an Olive Garden, be sure to put it on your bucket list. Most folks like to go there for the salad and breadsticks alone. So I’m gonna say that even if you don’t think this dressing tastes exactly like the one at Olive Garden, I think you’re still gonna really like the way it tastes.

Ingredients:

1 packet Good Seasonings Italian Dressing

(Ingredients needed to make dressing; oil, water,vinegar)

½ tsp. dried Italian Seasoning

½ tsp. table salt

¼ tsp. black pepper

½ tsp. sugar

¼ tsp. garlic powder

½ tbsp. mayonnaise (no Miracle Whip, please)

¼ cup olive oil

2 tbsp. white vinegar

1 ½ tbsp. water

If you’ve never seen Good Seasons Italian Dressing before, you can usually find it down the aisle in your grocery store where all the other salad dressings are. The packets are usually near where they keep the packets of ranch dressing. Most stores carry the boxed sets that also come with the salad dressing cruet like the one I have above.

Directions:

Prepare Good Seasonings Italian Seasonings Dressing as it states on back of packet.

The packet makes just a small bit of dressing.

Once prepared, pour dressing in a medium bowl, then add additional ingredients listed above (starting with the dried Italian Seasoning).

Using a whisk, mix all ingredients until mixed thoroughly combined and pour it into a container with a lid. Mason jars also work well for this.

Serve with your favorite salad fixings.

Store unused dressing in a sealed container in the refrigerator for up to 4 weeks. Be sure to give the bottle a good shake before using.

Enjoy!

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Olive Garden Salad Dressing

AuthorThe Country Cook

Ingredients

1packet Good Seasonings Italian Dressing

(Ingredients needed to make dressing; oilwater, vinegar)

½tsp. dried Italian Seasoning

½tsp. table salt

¼tsp. black pepper

½tsp. sugar

¼tsp. garlic powder

½tbsp. mayonnaise (no Miracle Whipplease)

¼cupolive oil

2tbsp. white vinegar

1 ½tbsp. water

Instructions

Prepare Good Seasonings Italian Seasonings Dressing as it states on back of package.

Once prepared pour it in a medium bowl, then add additional ingredients listed above (starting with dried Italian Seasoning).

Using a whisk, mix all ingredients until mixed thoroughly combined.

Serve with your favorite salad fixings.

Recipe Notes

Store unused dressing in a sealed container in the refrigerator for up to 4 weeks. Be sure to give the bottle a good shake before using.

This is one of my favorites!! We love to have Olive Night at home!! I have a great recipe on my blog for their Zuppa Toscana soup, it's SO GOOD, one of our favorites!! If you haven't tried it, maybe you can do that one your next Olive Garden nights? 🙂Thanks for sharing this!! <3

That looks so delicious. I love love that dressing. Thanks for sharing your recipe. Come visit us. We have a great low fat crockpot recipe this week and tomorrow roasted veges with grape seed oil. Wonderful.

Hi Christina! Yes, I would definitely go with the Good Seasons brand on this. You could certainly try it with another brand and let me know how it turns out if you can't find the Good Seasons one. The jar came as part of a Good Seasons package but a mason jar with a lid will work just fine for this too (or any other lidded jar you have hanging around 🙂

Yum! I cant wait to try this with the breadsticks and the amazing zuppa toscana soup recipe I have, that really does taste as good as Olive Garden… And maybe some alfredo sauce for breadsticks? Hmm.. Its getting chilly just in time 🙂 Thanks!

I like making homemade salad dressings, but I don't do it nearly as often as I should. I should work on that. I know one dressing the husband would like me to work on is the honey-lime dressing from Cheddar's. He's addicted!

I made this tonight and loved it!! I personally never have ate at Olive Garden the first one s opening here in Alaska next week so i will try it out. My hubby though has and said this was pretty darn ls and loved it!!

That is SO awesome to hear!! Yay!! (Is it still okay to say awesome, or does that make me sound old & out of date?? LOL). So happy you liked it! Glad to hear you are getting Olive Garden. We don't eat there very often because it's on the expensive side for our budget but when we do it's a real treat. So it's nice to be able to make these meals at home (for a quarter of the price!)

Can I ask, did you double this recipe for the 'finished product' photo? I don't understand how it went from the bottom bit of the jar filled from the seasoning packet mix to almost FULL after just adding a few tsps of spices and 1/4 cup of oil. Did I miss something?

OK, had our Olive Garden supper tonight and it was fan-tabulous! They all agreed the salad dressing tasted just like OG and they really liked the eazy way garlic breadsticks. # 1 son said to cut back on the sausage and I would have had it perfect. Thanks again for your recipes and all the hard work you do to get the blog out every day.

Mary – you made my day!! yay! So happy your family (and you!) are enjoying the recipes. Your comment meant so much to me and I'm so thrilled you are happy with how all the food is turning out!! Thank you so much for taking the time out of your busy day to let me know!

No thank you for taking the time to figure out my new favorite dressing to make. I just blogged about it and gave a big thank you to you. check it out when you have time. http://www.questfordelish.blogspot.com

I work at olive garden and i love it!!! I have been there for three years. The dressing is 6 dollors at bottle. It comes in a glass bottle. I have two old bottles that i have used up so i put my homemade og (olive garden) dressing in those after i make it. You might want to buy a bottle just to save it and put your homemade into later.

Found the brand at the store. Its so much better the day after its mixed. Its pretty stinkin close to Olive Garden. Im sad that I ran out of salad fixins! Very good and totally takes care of that craving I get for thier salad. Thank you!!

You list olive oil, white vinegar and water in recipe but then it calls for those to make the good seasonings dressing…so do you add more later or where those amount listed for what you need for the Good seasonings dressing? Just want to make sure I'm using them twice?

Wow! Love both of these at Olive Garden. Have tried recreating the dressing at home, but am always just a little off….but now I've got a "keeper". Of course, if these taste like the restaraunt, I'll never get my husband out for dinner anymore! Thanks for sharing.

I have made the ranch dressing recipe using fresh, pressed (minced) garlic. How much fresh garlic would you substitute for the garlic powder in this OG recipe? Also, thank you so much for all your great recipes. I just discovered this site a few weeks ago & love it. Lesa

Hi Lesa, So glad you are enjoying all the recipes you've tried so far! Normally I love to use fresh garlic where I can. It's inexpensive and it adds a ton of flavor! But in this recipe, the garlic powder really is best since the garlic flavor is not a big star in the show here like in the ranch dressing. It's just a subtle background flavor and if you use fresh garlic, it really won't give you that "copycat" olive garden flavor. Hope that helps.Also, to answer Snowmanlover's question, this dressing keeps in the fridge for 2-3 weeks. 🙂

FYI, I was told by the wait staff at OG that the dressing has parmesan in it (I have a dairy allergy so I asked) perhaps adding some would make it even more authentic. But if this tastes like it then i'm going to have to try the dairy free version!

Anonymous 1 – I'm sorry, I can't really help you out with the nutritional information. I'm sorry! Anonymous 2 – I always sprinkle a bit of parmesan on my salad when I make it but I don't put it in the actual dressing. 🙂

Made this for our salad tonight. Since we can't buy the Good Seasons seasoning here in Canada, I substituted Club House Italian Dressing mix. Made the dressing as per instructions…only modification I made was about 1 tbsp. of parmasan cheese added. This dressing was the bomb…just like Olive Garden!! This recipe is definitely a keeper 🙂

@anon asking about the nutritional info, I think you would be pretty safe in just going with the value of your olive oil.. so i would think it would be pretty close to 120 cal/tbs, with it all being fat cals BUT it's the good fats,but you'd still want to use it as sparingly as possible. Yes I know there is sugar and mayo in it, but it's a small amount and it also has water init which would come into play also.I just think you'd be safe the way I said.

I used to work at the Olive Garden and my son got totally hooked to the dressing when I worked there…it was the only dressing he would eat (and therefore the only time he would accept salad as his veg of choice! Now as a full time mommy blogger, it's nice to have this in the arsenal. Great idea and thanks so much!

I made this dressing last night and it was IDENTICAL to the Olive Garden! I live in Manhattan so the only Olive Garden we have is in Times Square, a great area but one in which people who live in NYC tend to want to avoid. You saved me a trip to get our fill.

I modified your recipe a bit by adding an 1/8 cup of fresh shredded parmesan cheese, some black olives, sliced onions and a couple pepperoncini peppers into the dressing. I threw these ingredients in a couple hours before I planned to serve, so they could marinate and soak up the dressing.

I also made your breadsticks the night before and reheated them the next night to serve (reheated at 350 and rebrushed with oil/garlic powder mix).

I would have to give you two thumbs way up on this. Perfect job recreationg the recipes!

I made this last night for my boyfriend (as well as the breadsticks) and let's just say I may get a ring out of this. You nailed it! It was absoultely exact to the dressing I have had (many a times) at The Olive Garden!

I modified it a bit (after tasting it and agreeing it tasted exactly like OG's) by adding the following ingredients and letting them marinate in the dressing for a couple hours before I served: about an 1/8 cip shredded parmesan, 1/2 cup sliced onions, black olives and pepperoncini peppers.

We live in Manhattan so you saved us a trip down to the only OG in the city – which is located in Times Square, an area which is great but at the same time, one in which those who live in NYC tend o want to avoid.

Kgibsongirl, you said you added the sliced onions, pepperchinis & olives to marinate, does that mean you removed them before serving or did you chop them up real fine and leave them in dressing when serving?

IMO.. this recipe is spot on perfect and tastes exactly like the real deal.

My husband and I use to celebrate our anniversary at olive garden every year (our tradition) but in the past two years we haven't been able to go (with having small kids), so we skip it. But this year we can have olive garden at home, the tradition lives on 🙂 ty.

JUST finished making/ eating this dressing, and I have to say I love it! OG dressing is my favorite, but being a broke college girl means I don't get to eat there very often! & I've been trying to find a great dressing to eat at home- besides the ever faithful ranch! I just wanted to thank you for sharing this recipe! I'm going to go fix myself another helping of salad… 🙂

Hi, I just have a question about storing this. I have all the ingredients and I am about to make this but I am afraid I will have to toss out most of it after 2-3 weeks. Is there anyway to prolong the life of the dressing? Maybe freezing half or putting it in an air tight container? (haha i have no idea if it will even freeze) It is only me and my husband and I dont like having to throw stuff out if i can help it! (Although, we might end up eating more salads because of the dressing and then it wont be an issue)Thanks cant wait to try it!

Made this at lunch; Delish! Now I'm waiting for my 12 and 13 year olds to get home from school with their friends; I have a huge bowl of salad waiting in the fridge I know they will eat it right up! Thanks for sharing. 🙂

I just love reading everyone's comments! I'm just so happy y'all are enjoying this recipe!! Sarah, I got that bowl a few years ago at Target (it was a Black Friday sale..LOL. But I have recently seen a similar one at Kohl's. 🙂

This was amazing! The only change I made was I used cider vinegar (it was all I had) and I added Parmesan to the dressing! The whole family raved! This will be my go to dressing! Thank you so much for sharing!

This is a great recipe. Not exactly Olive Garden but just as good. I use fresh garlic and add fresh grated parmesan cheese to the dressing. I also use less olive oil. Now I can get my salad fix anytime.

Excellent recipe! In my early 20's I worked as a sou chef in a high end Italian resteraunt (locally owned, non franchise) Quite a few of our finer chefs tried to emulate the olive gardens Italian dressing recipe, none came as close as yours. I found the recipe and made it at home, my wide and two year old are infatuated with it!! Thank you, good work and congrats on your successful blog

My guys (husband and grown boys) who eat nothing but ranch dressing) DEVOURED this! It was yummy and I appear like superwoman after a 12 hour day. Yep, I'm that mom. Pinterest makes me look like I can cook fabulously.. Tee hee hee

I worked at Olive Garden for ONE day back in 1980. A new restaurant was opening so we were to have a week of training. I quit because I didn't want to have to sing the "Hospitaliano" song that they used to make their employees sing, I think for birthdays since I can't sing…however, they told us that day that the dressing is made using Wishbone Italian and doctored up with egg and other seasonings. That was before it came out that raw eggs were going to kill you, so not sure if they went to the mayo or still use eggs. I never noticed a difference if they changed it. I use Good Seasons all the time so I can't wait to try this.

I made this recipe.. It was amazing! However, when I refrigerated it for one night it got all hard and crusty. It was in the door, so it's not in the coldest place of the fridge. It needs to be refrigerated because of the mayo, but is there anyway to keep it liquidy? I want to be able to use this more than once. 🙁

That's because of the olive oil that's in it. Jut put it out on the counter for a few minutes for it to warm up a tad and it will be easily pourable in minutes Hope that helps. So happy you like this recipe! 🙂

Love this salad dressing! We don't have an Olive Garden but this gives me my fix! I like to cut raw vegies (carrots, celery, cucumber etc.) add dressing and feta cheese. I have that as a salad at least once or twice a week.

I'm sorry I don't have an answer for you. I think there are programs you can use online that help you to figure out calorie counts as well as fat grams. Someone told me about a weight watchers program online that does it but I'm sorry that I don't have a link for you. Maybe someone on here will be able to help!

the basic recipe on the package is about 130/2 tblsp. However you can make it with less oil which I did, Leaving out 1/4 cup of oil. I would guess with the added mayo it would be about that or less.When I get around to it I will figure it out exactly

ETA based on a 1/8 cup serving using reducing oil (as on packet) I came up with 80 cals

I have made your dressing twice now and the whole family LOVES this dressing!! My husband who is notorious for only eating the TOP layer of his salad (aka where all the good stuff is) actually cleans his plate if he has this dressing. He told me tonight to never buy dressing again! Thanks a million for sharing this!!

I made this dressing last night. I used part of the batch on a green salad (which was wonderful), and the rest on pasta salad. I believe it is one of the best pasta salads I have ever made! Thank you so much for yet another great recipe!

I made this this morning, and it is absolutely FANTASTIC! Thank you SO much for posting this! I've been trying to find a way to get myself to eat salds for a while, I just never feel full after, but I've always loved the Olive Garden dressing. I'll definitely be using this in the future!

Worked at Olive Garden for years. They take premade Italian dressing and add raw eggs and parm cheese to make it their own. Your addition of mayo makes up for the eggs, but you're clearly missing the cheese.

What type of oil do you suggest using in making the packet of dressing, before adding additional ingredients. Also, will apple cider vinegar work as well as white vinegar….thanks…love your blog and all the great recipes and info!

During the holidays everyone in the family gets together and we all have one food item to bring or make for dinner. Last year I was responsible for doing the SALAD. I made this recipe and it was such a hit that it's been a favorite family request ever since. Now it's "official" I am the family's" Holiday "Salad King" (It's Christmas!) and I'm whipping up a batch of this fabulous dressing right now!